Resources & Tools

On the pages within this section of the website you will find resources, tools and contacts to help you in advancing the accessibility of your content. You will also find resources at the bottom in the footer section of each page.

OSU Departments

Responsible for overseeing compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and The Americans With Disabilities Act, responding to complaints of discrimination, and working with administrative units in responding to requests for accommodation from faculty, staff and other employees with disabilities.

Disability Access Services (DAS) facilitates the success of students with disabilities as well as assisting staff and faculty that work at Oregon State University. DAS promotes and provides education and training to staff, faculty and the campus community. DAS also provides a variety of student services such as note taking, captioning and other assistive technology needs.

WAI, in coordination with organizations around the world, pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development. This initiative is a subset of the W3C.

Validation services can help you make sure your HTML is properly formed. It checks for syntax errors that could potentially cause users to render your page incorrectly. It is recommended that you always check your markup for validity.

This free service will allow you to test web pages and help expose and repair barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines, such as Section 508 and the W3C's WCAG.

Cynthia is a web content accessibility validation solution, it is designed to identify errors in design related to Section 508 standards and the WCAG guidelines. The main purpose of this portal is to educate web site developers in the development Web Based content that is accessible to all. This online test only validates one page at a time. Note this demo will test about one (1) page per minute / per site.

WebAIM is a non-profit organization housed at Utah State University that has developed extensive knowledge on the accessibility of websites, multimedia, documents, and much more. It is an invaluable resource to learn more about this important topic.

WAVE is a web accessibility evaluation tool available either as a website or as a Firefox toolbar download. It provides a very nice quick snapshot on many (but not all) elements necessary to make websites accessible. WAVE cannot tell you if your web content is accessible, but it can help add the human checking process.

This University of Minnesota Information Technology office site maintains a running list of accessibility related articles from around the web, broken down by web element. While some of the articles are out of date, it is a great place to search for answers if you have specific questions.

Relevant Law & Regulation Websites

Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Any contract in excess of $10,000 entered into by any Federal department or agency for the procurement of personal property and non-personal services (including construction) for the United States shall contain a provision requiring that the party contracting with the United States shall take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment qualified individuals with disabilities.

No otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States shall, solely by reason of his or her handicap, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

Establishes principle of programmatic access to federally-funded programs. Does not directly address the internet, Web, or information technology, but lays foundation for accessibility to the services ("programs") of federally-funded programs.

Requires Federal agencies, or members of the public seeking information or services from a Federal agency, to use electronic and information technology that allows employees with disabilities to have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the employees without disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency.

Section 508 requires that Federal agencies' electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. The Center for Information Technology Accommodation (CITA), in the U.S. General Services Administration's Office of Governmentwide Policy, has been charged with the task of educating Federal employees and building the infrastructure necessary to support Section 508 implementation. Federal employees and the public can access tools for understanding and implementing the requirements of Section 508.

The Department of Justice is considering revisions to the ADA to include regulations to establish requirements for making the services, programs, or activities offered by Title II and III entities to the public via the Web accessible. This would create specific technical requirements (similar to the built environment) for web accessibility, most likely through the inclusion of either Section 508 or WCAG 2.0 language.

Revised regulations for Title II and III of the 1990 ADA, first time the ADA specifically mentions accessibility of web sites and services, saying, "public entities that choose to provide services through web-based applications (e.g., renewing library books or driver’s licenses) or that communicate with their constituents or provide information through the Internet must ensure that individuals with disabilities have equal access to such services or information."